D&D General Muscular Neutrality (thought experiment)

[Zeromaru X]

Is preserving the painful status quo when we can implement a better universe actually Good?

Depends. How are you implementing the "better universe"? Are you sharing your pacifist ways by force, or are you allowing people to choose them on their own free will? Is your "better universe" the best for everyone, or just for yourself and likeminded individuals?

If an individual has good intentions but implements them in a bad way, it still counts as "evil" in my book.

 

[Staffan]

I think the reason this debate keeps happening is that there is not an agreed upon definition of what terms like "good" and "evil" mean, or how to measure them. So positing that alignment is a real force doesn't give us much to go on.

Right. If the real world had a universally agreed-upon definition of "good", I think the world would look rather different.

 

[TwoSix]

Depends. How are you implementing the "better universe"? Are you sharing your pacifist ways by force, or are you allowing people to choose them on their own free will? Is your "better universe" the best for everyone, or just for yourself and likeminded individuals?

All of us are unified in the Godhead. There is no death. There is no suffering, loss, or pain. All of us live, joyfully, together, in eternal bliss.

Why would you possibly oppose that? How is accepting anything less, accepting suffering and inequality and unfairness, anything but a diminishment of Good?

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

capital G good by its nature of being an ontological force can't ever morph from good as to do so would break what it is, e.g. gravity can't stop being gravity.

Maybe on some celestial plane where there is no hunger or pain or inclement weather. But that force cannot exist in its purest form on the material plane. Can you tell a lion to stop eating gazelles? Is that good? Maybe it makes for a better world if good lets lions starve and be wiped out. Surely Lions don't think that's good.

Pure Good requires that every being's needs and desires are identical. Then catering to all those needs and desires are easily done.

 

[TwoSix]

Right. If the real world had a universally agreed-upon definition of "good", I think the world would look rather different.

As soon as someone manages to figure out how to "alleviate all suffering" while also "maintaining free will for all", let me know.

 

[Mind of tempest]

All of us are unified in the Godhead. There is no death. There is no suffering, loss, or pain. All of us live, joyfully, together, in eternal bliss.

Why would you possibly oppose that? How is accepting anything less, accepting suffering and inequality and unfairness, anything but a diminishment of Good?

there is the suffering of no change also how do I know the godhead is the good guy what if he is the evil side?

Maybe on some celestial plane where there is no hunger or pain or inclement weather. But that force cannot exist in its purest form on the material plane. Can you tell a lion to stop eating gazelles? Is that good? Maybe it makes for a better world if good lets lions starve and be wiped out. Surely Lions don't think that's good.

Pure Good requires that every being's needs and desires are identical. Then catering to all those needs and desires are easily done.

a world where nothing eats the gazelles is a world with an ecosystem about to implode thus not good.
nature is not good but it is necessary.

As soon as someone manages to figure out how to "alleviate all suffering" while also "maintaining free will for all", let me know.

I find most people are totally okay with giving up the freedom to murder people in exchange for being safe from murder.
define free will as I am not free to terraform mars and venus when ever I want do I thus not have free will?

 

[Umbran]

I think the reason this debate keeps happening is that there is not an agreed upon definition of what terms like "good" and "evil" mean, or how to measure them. So positing that alignment is a real force doesn't give us much to go on.

No, it doesn't. But, I refer back to the question in the OP - "What justifies a position of muscular neutrality?"

The metaphysics of how it all actually works isn't specified in the game. As far as I am aware, Gygax himself never told us what happens if Good or Evil finally won. So, this answer has to be generated for any campaign in which it has, or might, happen. Most of us don't play games that will decide the Ultimate Question, so as GMs we never have to consider it.

But we can take that to mean that the characters within the fictional universe don't know for certain themselves. That leaves a lot of room for justification. If you don't really know the consequences, that can justify taking a muscular neutral stance. Or, if you believe that one side or the other will lead to a suffusion of energy in the prime material that will stop all natural processes, and you find those processes more dear than anything else, that might justify the stance.

Are these questions in the context of @Umbran's premises? According to these premises, Good is totally ok with the destruction of the universe just to accomplish its goal of achieving the Ultimate Good.

For me, that's not Good. That's Evil with a hat.

Oh? What if the result is that, yes, the Prime Material as we know it ends, but all souls, past, present, and future wind up at peace in their appropriate paradise? Is that evil with a hat?

You cannot judge the moral position unless we lay out the full picture. But there is no one full picture for all game worlds and all tables. It is a campaign choice.

Also note that we are considering a universe that does not care about our mortal opinions of Good and Evil. Mortals are not the ones who decide what is, or isn't Good. Much like the family dog has opinions of what is good to eat - but, like, some dogs will ingest linoleum, charcoal briquettes, or basketballs. The dog can be wrong about what to eat. The mortal can be wrong about what is actually Good.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That's why in my games is Light and Darkness rather than Good and Evil. I was trying to adapt that premise to the muscle neutrality, but as you said yourself, is not a perfect fit.

I have Good and Evil, but the Good has really strict rules about what it is and isn't allowed to do. Most of the Evil does too, but those rules are enforced by power, rather than willingly abided by.

(In brief, true celestials are Good, but the being they heed, who claims to have created existence, explicitly says that the freedom of choice that mortals possess is the whole point of Creation, and thus for a celestial to take away the agency of a mortal is to defeat the whole point of having mortals in thr first place. This leaves Good stuck with wooing, rather than commanding. Evil must also woo, entice, beguile, but for different reasons.)

 

[Umbran]

There is also another justification for the muscular neutral stance: The ultimate consequences of it don't completely suck, and the near-term consequences are pleasing to me now.

The muscular neutral stance means you don't end up super-horrible. In the standard cosmology, the Muscular Neutral person can expect to end up in the Concordant Opposition, which by definition, isn't all that bad. Some bits of it are quite nice, some of it is a bit nasty. But it ain't the Abyss or the Nine Hells, or anything like that. It varies a bit - perhaps giving more variety to your afterlife than you'd get anywhere else.

And, for folks like the Circle of Eight, the stance is what allows them to keep operating. If Good or Evil dominates, those factions dominate, leaving less room for the Circle of Eight to have and exert power - "Let's you and him fight, and I can go about my business" is very practical for the CoE.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

They're in that context, yes. Basically asking if a Good "destruction" of the universe is actually Evil.

Is preserving the painful status quo when we can implement a better universe actually Good?

Preserving a painful status quo may be better than what extreme measures have to be taken to achieve the allegedly "better" universe.

If you require a pseudo-empirical explanation: it might be the case that there is a higher, global maximum of the function. But if we are on a local maximum, then in order to reach that higher global maximum, we will need to do harm (perhaps a great deal of it) first.

Given how often "utopia justifies the means" has been used as an excuse for some of the worst evils to ever plague mankind, I can't say I'm eager to call such a perspective "Good". I am very skeptical of any ordinary person claiming to be able to magically make everything better for everyone if you just give them absolute power and let them eliminate the pesky little issues interfering with the perfect result.

Destroying what is, especially if doing so is violent and possibly destructive to the other people involved, is rarely preferable over preserving what is and finding ways to make it better without such devastation.